Silk Road 2 (X68000)

It's an action RPG! I actually meant to write about this game ages and ages ago, but never got round to it, then I got stuck and didn't play it again for about a year. But I recently decided to pick it back up, started a new file, and now I'm further than I was before. I'll probably have completed it in the near future!
Anyway, you play as a young elf-girl-thing with a tail, and you explore some nice SNES-looking countryside. There's a map screen, that shows the world split into a grid of squares, each representing one screen. Four of the squares have numbers in them, which represent bosses. When you defeat a boss, you get an item which gives you a new ability: winged bots that allow you to jump, flippers that let you swim, etc. I don't yet know what happens when you beat all four bosses, unfortunately.
The game plays pretty well, and the controlsare well designed, using only the directions and two buttons. The first button uses your weapon, some kind of blowgun that shoots bubbles, and when held down, allows you to select an item, via a Secrret of Mana-Esque ring menu. The second button uses the currently selected item.
After a boss, you'll usually end up meeting a crazy-eyed witch who sells you stuff. Here is my advice: always buy the red and blue ribbons, they're 200 gold each, and they increase your attack (red) and defence (blue).
The game is all in Japanese, though you might be able to get through without understanding. There were a couple of points where I had to ask for help from JP-literate friends, but after they'd told me what the text said, I felt a little stupid, as the solution was always something obvious. So, if you're maybe not as dumb as me, you might be able to get through the game without being able to read the text. There's not much of it, anyway.
Silk Road 2 is a really fun game, and it's definitely worth playing. There's also a PC port of the game, with nicer graphics, and even a babelfish-esque translation patch. I haven't played that version, because reports suggest it's somewhat bug-ridden, and I found this version first and was too stubborn to change.

The Muncher (C64)

The Muncher is a C64 game that was also a tie-in with Chewits. Except that the version I played for this review didn't appear to have any kind of Chewits branding in it, and the title screen says "Monster". But other than that, it's the same game.

You play as a big green t-rex looking dinosaur (that, even in the version with the chewits branding, doesn't look anything like the dinosair from the Chewits ads), and you go from left to right, destroying as much as you can along the way. It looks a lot like Rampage, though there are differences. Like rather than having to destroy everything, most of the destruction in The Muncher is optional, and just for points, and the aim of each stage is to keep going right until you reach the end and go on to the next stage. You're constantly being attacked by tanks, helicopters and army men, though destroying any of the enemies (as well as passers-by) regains a small amount of health. You have a lot of attacks to kill them with, too, considering you only have the directions and one button: you can reach down and smash/eat enemies on the ground, jump up and smash helicopters in your mouth, and you also have a limited-use fireball attack  Plus, by moving from side to side, you can destroy the buildings behind you with tail whips..
Once your health runs out, your game is over, though there is a trick to come back from the dead by picking up an egg and later dropping it in a radioactive barrel. Either way, once you get to stage 3 (the army base), you'll probably die within a few seconds anyway.
The Muncher is okay. It has a nice big player sprite, and it's less boring than Rampage, but it's not really worth going out of your way to play.